ALL TRAVELLING DONE

I'm back from my visit to the States to see Cécile, Aziz and the children. I had a good trip, and warm weather for the first week. Then it went rainy and colder. I liked their new house, which reminds me of illustrations one sees in children's story books of the "Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe" 's house, that is, quirky, slightly crooked and up a lot of stairs. It's an old house, especially for the States, and there's a lot to do, but it has character and history.

Leif had his first birthday while I was there, and Marius prepared for halloween, choosing which costume he was going to dress up in. And I had the dubious pleasure of keeping them for a day and a half while their parents took a breather in New York.

I had an American lady housesitting while I was away, everything went well, the dog loved her and got walked about three times as much as with me. Here is a picture in front of a crab dinner and margaritas...

Now everything is back to normal, no more travelling for this year (or next, probably, with the state of my finances), but Nicholas' visit at Christmas to look forward to. I must get on with painting the sitting room and finishing the upstairs bathroom.

I finished a pottery doorstop in the shape of a spineless hedgehog before leaving. Here is a picture of it, I'm really pleased with the result, and it's nice and heavy and holds the door more than adequately. I shall be picking up my finished artichoke sculpture tomorrow, after innumerable coats of enamel trying to get the right colours. If it's not right this time, I'll give up. I'll show you a picture next post.

I went last night to a feng shui workshop the other side of Quimper. Last minute decision, I only actually found out about it a couple of hours before it took place. I really enjoyed it, and think I shall attend future workshops (about one a month). I've been interested in feng shui and geobiology for ages, but it's really complicated to learn out of books. The lady holding the workshop was very nice, and explained things slowly and very understandably. It'll get more complicated of course, but I'm quite hopeful that I shall get a better idea of it this way. And I'll meet a few more people!

IN THE FINISTERE, WE GET FREE LOBSTER

The life boat at Loctudy

Looks quite big, but it wasn't, the claws were virtually empty and the body of both came to about eight mouthfuls (but nice...!)

Now I know you are going to find this difficult to believe, but I just lunched on not one, but two free lobsters! Very, very small mind you (otherwise I could hardly have eaten two could I!), but free nonetheless. I went to get my vegetable basket at Loctudy this morning, and as usual went on to the fishing port to get my fish for the week direct from the boats. I bought some "dos de colin" which I'm going to do for guests on Sunday in a coconut thai curry, four sardines (3€ the kilo), a lovely big mackerel (3,50€ the kilo) and when I went to pay, she split two cooked lobsters and put them in a bag for me. I protested that I had not asked for lobster, but she insisted that they were giving them to people with a "carte de fidélité" (that is, I'm a faithful, albeit only once a week, customer). (I think they must have over-estimated the number of tourists still around and cooked too many?) So I said, well thank you very much, pocketed the lobsters and bought a bit of mayonnaise from a charcuterie on the way home. If I'd known, I wouldn't have bought so many sardines!

What with lunch and the heat, I'm feeling quite comatose...

LONG WEEKEND NEAR GENEVA

I spent the weekend before last meeting up with friends I made in India last March. Seven of us decided to get together and one of the Norwegian ladies who lives in France just over the border from Geneva kindly offered to host us in her lovely big house.

I organised housesitters ages ago, to look after the house, dog and cat. I found two Swedish ladies from couchsurfers.org, roughly my age, who flew into Brest airport the day before I left, hired a car, and drove down here. Normally I leave my car for my housesitters, but this time I drove across France. I left on Thursday morning, and drove to Azay-le-Rideau in the Loire Valley, where my friend Marylou has a crêperie. I haven't seen her for two years so it was a good opportunity to catch up. I arrived at the end of the afternoon, having strolled along,  stopping off to look at things on the way. She gave me dinner in her restaurant, working like a slave all the while, I don't know how she keeps it up.

I left the next morning about 10h00, and drove the rest of the way, along the Loire (I grew quite nostalgic during this bit of the journey), then through Burgundy and on to the border. Not a part of France I know well. I don't like mountains. I felt claustrophobic and closed in when I was not far from my destination. And there was an awful lot of traffic, it took me for ever to get there.

The river Cher at Montrichard

The weather was perfect Saturday and Sunday, we were able to eat out all the time on a wide terrace overlooking the mountains, in true style I took no photos, relying on other people to send me theirs; with the result that I have none as yet. We chatted a lot and analysed what it was we got out of our stay in India; there is no doubt that everybody came away changed to some degree. We cooked meals by rota, vegetarian it had been agreed. Very good food, good atmosphere, a very nice weekend.

My hostess and a couple of fellow guests Place des Nations, Geneva

And on Monday I headed back to do the same drive the other way round. I left at 10h30, went back to Azay le Rideau with the same awful traffic, and had dinner with Marylou and her partner by the river (Vienne? I'm never sure which one it is). I slept at their house that night and set off the following day for Angers where Yves was working for the day. I found a small, very cheap hotel just where I wanted it, by the river Maine at Bouchemaine, just down the road from a very good restaurant, l'Ancre Marine, which Yves found a bit complicated, but which I enjoyed thoroughly. A wide view over the river, a full moon rising, good food, a nice bottle of Chinon. I had tartare de daurade and then  sweetbreads in a sabayon d'agrumes, a curious mixture but very good.

The village of Bouchemaine is very attractive, at least the old part by the river. It has tiny streets and old stone houses, and a path along the Maine where it joins the Loire. There were fishermen, a few late holidaymakers, and lots of birdlife. We spent a night there about 12 years ago when I was working for Vacances en Campagne and we didn't regret going back at all.

On Wednesday, I dropped Yves off at the station in Angers, without the help of my GPS which gave up the ghost at that precise moment, then headed in the direction of Nantes. I stopped in an aire and rang the person who keeps Shahdlou to see if I could pop by and see him, and then headed up using my mapbook (what a strange feeling!) to Vay, near Nozay. Shahdlou looked good, he was in a field with 5 other horses, and a few beef cattle. I gave him the bread rolls I had pilfered from the breakfast table and he came and gave me a distinct sign of affection by leaning his head on my chest. One can only stay ten minutes, but it did me good. These photos are not good, but he kept coming towards me. For his age, 24, he's still looking good. The farmer who looks after him, and other horses from the same retired horses association, is in the picture. He's a really nice chap.

Then back to Quimper and my Swedish ladies who had kept the household going. It started to pour with rain, and went on for two days. And cold with it. They prepared me a Swedish dinner for the night of my arrival back with Janssen's fretelse pictured below. Very good and very welcome after a day on the road. They left on Friday to go and tour the north of the Finistère before leaving by plane again. I'm so lucky with my housesitters. I have another one arriving in three weeks time, an American this time, when I go to America to see Cécile and her family.

The weather has turned wonderful again. And all the tourists have gone! Which makes life easier and Quimper emptier. Schools go back this week. I can go to the beach with Ellie again. Back to normal...

OUT AND ABOUT

I wrote this a couple of weeks ago, and was waiting for photos of menhirs and stuff, but I can't get hold of them so I'm publishing this very late, without changing anything.



The weather still isn't really summery, we have the occasional few hours of sunshine, but mostly it's a bit grey and cold. Yves was here for a week and we got out quite a lot considering. We took a picnic to the estuary of the Aulne at a place called Le Passage, near Trégarvan;  it was beautiful and very quiet.

We also went back to the Montagne St Michel to get another shot at the chapel, the scenery around there is so complex, so many greens.

Last Tuesday, we went for a walk with Ellie around the Anse St Laurent, near Concarneau, she loves that walk through the forest with all its smells, and I love it because you follow the sea most of the way. I took some good photos of mosses.

We also went to three exhibitions of paintings, there are lots around here at the moment. One was at Bénodet, of paintings by official Peintres de la Marine. Some were absolutely wonderful. And we went to the Musée des Beaux Arts in Quimper to see Meijer de Haan, a contemporary of Gauguin, who lived around here with him for a while. That was very good too. And on Tuesday afternoon, we went to the Manoir du Moustoir, about ten minutes from here, where there was an exhibition of Mathurin Méheut, and a contemporary painter called Bonnot, and a few others, wonderful stuff, all so different.

de Haan

We ate out several times, once by the sea at Kerity, Chez Emma (Le Doris), no surprises there, all good fresh fish and friendly service, and at Ty Coz on the northern edge of Quimper, which I had wanted to try for ages. Nice place, quiet, tables well spaced apart, a fairly short menu but good food. I had a feuilletée de petits gris and mushrooms with garlic butter and Yves had smoked trout with a millefeuille of tapenade and frothy pea mixture, then porcelet confit dans son jus pendant 7 heures, which was simply wonderful, with lots of veg for a change, and pièce de boeuf which was also declared very good.  And then profiteroles and crème brûlée. Menu at 29€. There were much more complicated menus. The drink was very expensive though. Apéritif was exorbitant, but we had a good Chinon.  The only fault to be found was that the carafe of tap water was strongly javelisé, they should invest in filter jugs!

We also went out hunting for prehistoric burial chambers, unsuccessfully at first, but later, having parked the car roughly where the plan said we should find one, we walked for ages along an ancient sunken track, and eventually, having asked an elderly local lady for directions, found it in a field of wheat. There are so many around Brittany, that the farmers don't pay them much notice, and often they are covered in brambles and surrounded with crops. Only the more important ones, or those standing in places that cannot be cultivated, are kept clear of vegetation.

I've done a teeny bit of work on the bathroom, painted the ceiling, one coat at least, before I ran out of paint and had to go up to Audierne today to get more. Looks good though, pale shell pink instead of that awful varnished wood colour.

I've finished another painting,  of a hypothetical bit of the Finistère coast in winter at low tide, with a lighthouse and a village right in the distance, seen through pine branches. It all sounds complicated, and it is, far too complicated. I'm not happy with the layout or the subject matter. But it's all in a good cause, and  each time I learn something.

I picked a large bunch of wild flowers, with a bit of russet fern and some reddened dock leaves, on my way back from Audierne this afternoon, when I stopped to walk Ellie a bit. I'm going to try and still life it tomorrow. I put them in the silver christening mug I brought back from Compton last time I went.

WHAT DO THE THE FLOPSY BUNNIES AND I HAVE IN COMMON?

The good thing about having a jungle for a garden is that at certain times of the year, it turns into a blackberry patch! I have just won the All Brittany Prize for the most blackberries picked in the shortest time. I've been meaning to hack myself a path down the garden to check on them for some while, and today was the day. So armed with secateurs, a colander, and a dachshund puppy on a lead (for fear of her going into, but never coming out of the bramble patch), I have just picked a kilo of prime berries, not the mouldy ones, not the unripe ones, not all the ones that fell off into the undergrowth because I didn't have a hand free to steady the branch I was picking off (if you understand my English), but the enormous, really ripe kind that you never see in hedgerows because someone has always got there before you. But this is my private patch.

And this after having given a second coat to the bathroom ceiling and plastered as much of the bathroom walls as the bucket contained (said to be 7m², but nearer 5m² I reckon - I shall have to get more).

So you will forgive me if I sit down with a book for the rest of the afternoon and have blackberries and cream for my tea.

ART

Here are a some photographs of  paintings I've done recently. There are others I'm still fiddling with.

This is a riverside village, not all that good, I couldn't get the green right.

This is called Dimanche au bord de la mer, and I'm very pleased with it. I don't know if you can make it out in the picture, I've scratched plates, knives and forks and glasses into the wet paint. It really gets the atmosphere I wanted and I think I'm making progress.

This is Girl with green hair, it looks better in the close up version on the right, but the composition is slightly off so I've put the other full version on the left. I've noticed that the best paintings are done on old canvases that I've painted over to use again. It gives an interesting twist to backgrounds that you would never get otherwise.

My pottery has proved unphotographable, it just doesn't come out right, so I'm not going to show it to anyone. I did lots of pots, rather nice ones, at the end of the pottery year, and a sort of art nouveau lady without arms who is going to become a lamp when I've found or made a shade for her. Maybe then I can get a good photograph. And I've got an artichoke sculpture coming up (last coat, I hope, of enamel being fired this week) which looks quite good. Maybe I can get a decent photo of that...

THE STRANGEST CATERPILLAR...

Well actually it turns out to be something quite common.  I went out yesterday morning with my secateurs to trim little extraneous bits off my crab apple tree and nearly cut a caterpillar in half! Luckily it dropped off as soon as I touched it with the tip of the secateur. But the camouflage was amazing.

I've looked it up and its a Biston betularia (so should never have been on my crab apple at all except that it fitted in so neatly). And the butterfly it turns into camouflages just as well. There are apparently several forms of this butterfly. I've downloaded this second picture from the web, I hope no one will mind, the first picture is mine.

Interesting, huh?

SHORT TRIP TO DORSET IN JUNE

I popped back to Dorset for a long weekend from 17 to 22 June officially to attend Patrick Carson's 70th birthday party, which was very nice, and to see the family. Nicholas couldn't come down unfortunately, but I had a lovely weekend with splendid weather. You'll be surprised to hear I am thinking seriously of moving back to England. But I have to sell my house here first and that won't be until next Spring. I am hesitant because of the cultural aspects, language, food, markets, the beautiful scenery and coast here in Brittany, but Dorset is beautiful too, the climate very much the same, and though I shall have to speak English at least I have Steve's "Trencherman's" nearby for good food! The sea is not too far away, I would have absolute peace in the countryside (which is far from the case with my neighbours here in Quimper), and family around me. More of that in future posts.

I managed to finish my hallway in June, it's now painted, papered and re-floored and looks neat, clean and bright. A good selling point when people walk into the house.

I have been picking loads of raspberries from my jungly garden where they grow and multiply freely. This year has been so sunny that they have ripened as never before and funnily enough, the birds haven't touched them. My favourite fruit!

And then I had a visit last week from my Norwegian cousin Hakon and his wife Rona (Hakon is meant to have a little 'o' above the 'a' but I can't figure out how to do it on my keyboard). A most excellent visit, I felt very comfortable with them although we had never met before. In fact I only discovered his existence when I googled him last year, where would one be without internet?

And now I've gone into a lazy decline again, and can't be bothered to pick up a paintbrush and continue decorating the house, but I have been doing quite a lot of arty painting, which I may photograph for another time along with all the pottery I have produced this year. Nothing very marvellous, but interesting anyway to keep track.

COUCHSURFERS AND HOUSESITTERS

Is it really six weeks since I last posted? I started this post on 5th June, so I'll publish it quickly before updating on more recent news.

I had my "Indian" couchsurfer/housesitters here for four days last week. They are so easy to look after. I drove them up to central Brittany on Thursday where they are looking after another house, and will fetch them back again on Wednesday morning in time to go to England the next day for a long weekend. They know the house well, and Ellie and UP are used to them now, so there should be no problem.

I have filmed Ellie and her rabbit (with the sound) so that you can see how she enjoys it:

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

And here is a picture of the two spider crabs I was given last week:

And of the piece of land I have been looking at in Kerity Penmarc'h:

which I have now definitely decided not to go ahead with. But it was in a nice position near the sea in a little fishing village atmosphere. Probably too much hassle involved, I can do without that.

FREE SEAFOOD!

Last night, when I'd just finished eating my supper, about 20h00, there was a tap on my door and my neighbour, the nice one, was standing there with two live spider crabs he'd fished during the afternoon. It's not the first time he's given me stuff he has collected, last year he gave me three abalone, which are exceedingly rare and exceedingly good, because he thought I ought to try them. Spider crab is one of my favourites, much more delicate and tasty than crabe dormeur. So I cooked the two crabs without delay and had one for my lunch today. The other I gave to Elisabeth vdP, I couldn't manage two.

I have been laying flooring in the hall, the finishing touch, after painting all the woodwork pale grey (Farrow and Ball, or Little Greene, I can't remember which, we have an Englishman in Audierne who does English decorating materials, and I must say these paints are so wonderful they make painting almost a pleasure) and putting up the cheaper wallpaper I think I told you about on part of the walls (the other part is rough white boards (bois brut lasuré). The flooring is what we used to call lino, but today is much smarter. It imitates wood to perfection, and looks like pale whitey-grey parquet flooring, but comes in "boards" 15x70cm which you stick down. Really easy to lay, quite easy to cut using a Stanley knife or kitchen scissors. And very inexpensive! The first part went down really quickly, and now I'm struggling with all the irregular bits around the edges. It makes the hall looks enormous, compared to the dark red tunnel it was when I bought the house. With the new glass doors I put in last year and all the pale woodwork, it is a real lesson in what one can do with colour.

It was so hot yesterday (I put the power hose over the terrace in the afternoon and got quite sunburnt doing so) that I walked Ellie round the block at 22h30. And as I came back, the nice neighbour's wife was in their front garden and invited me in for a glass of wine. This is the first time I have been inside their house in the three years I have lived here, so it's definitely progress. It was by this time 23h00 and they were just sitting down with friends to a monumental feast of what they had fished in the afternoon, mostly spider crab, but also a few mussels, and some things that grow on the rocks, a sort of barnacle I suppose, which is a long tube ending with a sort of inverted hoof. They are called pouce-pied, pousse-pied or anatife in French and once again I can't find a translation, so here is a photo:

You cook them briefly and eat what is inside the tube. Now this is something that I had never eaten, very good, chewy, tasting a bit like a stronger version of a langoustine.

So I had my glass of rosé, watched them eating spider crab, chatted a bit and came back home to bed at midnight!

When I came in from doing the terrace yesterday I was frightfully thirsty. I juiced myself one raw beetroot and half a small watermelon. Quite delicious, and such a beautiful colour.

GARDEN AND ANIMALS

The cat stalking in my jungly garden

When it  was  so hot, I did homemade lemonade: a lemon cut into thin slices, a few dried scented rose petals from the garden, a good chunk of ginger cut into pieces, covered with a litre of boiling water. It turns out a delicate pink colour and is so good.

I've been knitting jazzy slipper socks for the Boukhelifa boys, not quite the time of year, but they'll be ready to take over with me when I go in September. I did these with just one ball of Noro Kureyon, and I've done myself a pair too, with a bit more wool than that!

I've been out of the pottery circuit for a while what with my trip to India and then school holidays here, I've now got a batch of things being completed that I either started before I went away or that I have done since. There are a lot of my garden bowls, that not everyone likes but that are very useful for miniature gardens, and putting keys in, and coarse salt in the kitchen, etc. There are a few little mini houses I experimented with, thinking they might be fun for Marius, but upon reflection, too fragile. And a lamp base in the shape of a sort of 1920s a bit art deco lady in a long skirt.  I'm quite pleased with this and now have to set about either making or finding the right sort of shade for it. Pictures will follow this week, nothing was ready to photograph last week.

A brave dachshund confronting the neighbour's cat with double glazed protection!

I have been walking Ellie on the opposite bank of the Odet, in Quimper, the side which is in fact nearer me. LocMaria. Down by the Quimper porcelaine works. You can't walk very far there, but it is quite lovely. There is a large field with three Pie Noire Breton cows, which have been given to the Ville de Quimper by various people, and are part of a conservancy project, first of all of Pie Noire cows, then of the banks of the Odet which they graze. They have their identity cards pinned up with their names, origins, character etc. Then there was a lovely little enclosed garden near where I park, filled with gloriously scented roses and jasmine, open to the public and maintained by the Ville de Quimper. I must say we are very lucky to have so many things at our disposal, paid for and tended by the council. Our local taxes are heavy, true, but at least we see something for them.

My carpenter came at the end of last week and put up a little gate at the head of the stairs down into my garden. He took pity on me and did this for free, including making the gate, so that Ellie could be contained on the terrace. It has changed both of our lives! She can run in and out and play the fool endlessly, I don't have to keep an eye  on her the whole time, I can leave the door open when it's warm, and eat on the terrace and sunbathe. For her, it is almost a substitute for her walk, she is so active, but not for me unfortunately!

I have discovered this year a sort of allium, I think, which must have self seeded from somewhere all over my garden. Wild garlic? Its leaves smell of it. Very pretty white and slightly pink flowers.

And an update on my palm flowers.

IT'S VEGETABLE BASKET DAY AGAIN

Well it was last Friday anyway, but I began this post and then didn't publish it on time...

I have managed to use up most of the veggies in my last week's basket, except for a few new spuds. It makes me get the recipe books out and really work at being creative.

I was invited for lunch on Friday to friends whom I haven't seen for 40 years or more. They live quite near where I pick up my basket, so I went to their place after going to the farm. I took dessert. I made lemon curd on Thursday and got up earlier, or rather trailed around less Friday morning and made some individual lemon meringue tarts.

Last Thursday I took Ellie for a walk in a country lane on the way to the big beach at Tréguennec. It was absolutely lovely, not too hot, amazing how deep in the country one can get in just 10 minutes from where I live. There was a profusion of wild flowers along the sides of the road, lots of bluebells, red campion, cow grass smelling strongly of honey, and a lot of little white flowers of which I don't know the name. There were quite a few butterflies too, including some tiny orange ones that I can't identify on internet. Might be a fritillary of some kind? Photo is a bit blurred.

My palm flowers are opening up and growing enormous. Each flower splits into several branches, and each of those into yet more little branches. They are bright bright yellow. They don't smell of anything at all, the little tiny balls which are the individual flowers are hard, like couscous! Some of the flowers are opening, they are still hard, but form little cups with tiny stamens inside. They attract no bees, but then we don't seem to have bees here anyway.

Looks quite exotic, doesn't it?

I bought three more cherry tomato plants to replace the one that mysteriously died. But I have planted them in front this time, less cats to worry about. The beef tomato on my back terrace seems to be doing OK, but no flowers and certainly no tomatoes.

Last week I took my courage in both hands, picked up a paintbrush, and actually base coated my hallway. This is no mean feat as those who have been following my DIY prowess recently will know. I have gone from working wonders ten years ago to being completely useless, and especially completely lazy now. It has taken me a year to get down to it. Well it's done, and I even went out and bought wall covering (no it's not called wallpaper any longer, it's much smarter than that) and will do that this weekend. I opted for a cheapish solution, not the extremely expensive stuff I found at the end of last year which cost 20€ a metre! The difference between wallpaper and wall covering (in France anyway) is that you don't put glue on the paper but on the wall. So you don't have to get the table out, and glue everywhere, you slap it on the wall, roll the paper up backwards, if you see what I mean, with the back of it showing, and then you don't even have to pre-cut the lengths, you just stick it at the top by the ceiling and let the roll unroll to the bottom and cut it then. Neat huh? Well that's the theory anyway.

The practice has been somewhat less comfortable. It's all very well to say "slap glue on the walls", but it goes everywhere, drips and splatters and yet still there often doesn't seem to be enough along the edges. And the paper tore easily, although that type of paper is not meant to. I don't like the result. I've done a fairly neat job, but what looked silvery grey on the roll looks far more navy on the wall. It darkens the hall a bit, and to me looks a bit too modern. Well it's better than plasterboard with the joints showing, there's always time to cover it up with the classy wall covering if ever I have some money to spare!

It has been so hot today it was hard to do anything. I can't leave doors open because Ellie would escape into the garden and beyond, so it's been a bit hot inside.  I just took her out for a walk at 22h00, a bit cooler, we went around the block, it's still broad daylight! It's going to be even hotter tomorrow, quite unusual for Brittany, they announce 29°C in Brest, which means that here it'll go above 30°. It appears there has been a serious fire in the forests and moors of the Monts d'Arrée 30km north of here. The firemen are still trying to put it out. We often go up there with a picnic. That will be out of the question for the rest of the year I suppose.

AND FROM WINTER TO SUMMER!

The sun has come out again! I even sat on my terrace yesterday and soaked it up for a quarter of an hour.
Ellie and I went to the big beach just after lunch. I never realized (because Oslo couldn't walk that far) that further on from the first blockhaus the beach is nudist. Ellie was fascinated and went and said hello to all the (two) males tanning their willies, and I had a devil's own job to get her back. Other men lurked in the dunes, fully dressed. Are they spying on those who do take their clothes off, or are they bucking up courage to do it themselves? I don't see why people can't walk their dogs on this part of the beach, so I go ahead and yesterday it was certainly worth it, because I found a "telline" mine. I don't know what tellines are in English, but here is a photo, they are little shiny flat triangular shellfish that you cook like mussels.

I managed to pick up about a kilo, and stopped because I couldn't carry any more in my little plastic bag. Back home, I put them in a bowl with a bit of salt and a lot of water to spit out their sand.

Here is the picture I promised of my flowering palm tree. The flowers are starting to emerge from the slipper like coverings. I'll take another when they are blooming.

Ellie has been chewing her way through most of her toys - things that are meant for much bigger dogs than her. So I threw them away and bought her a rabbit this afternoon with a sort of beeper inside it. At first she was frightened of it, but now they are inseparable (well actually, I think the rabbit could do without Ellie, but she can't do without the rabbit!).  I think I'm going to regret that it beeps...

I have just cooked my tellines. A glass of rosé in the bottom of a pan (I didn't have any white), with a knob of butter and a little salt and pepper, very little. A couple of large cloves of garlic chopped up. When that mixture comes to the boil, chuck in the tellines (or mussels), bring back to the boil, stir, and stop almost immediately or they go rubbery and dry and uninteresting. They are very tiny inside, don't take much cooking. At the end, add a handful of chopped parsley or coriander and eat them with a plate of chips on the side. Mmmmm...!

PS - I'm still losing weight...